Mary Kay sent me photos of a rustic looking hickory rocker and armchair finished with hickory rushed seats and backs, and a round low table. On the underside we see “Old Hickory, Martinsville, Indiana” burned or branded into the wood.
I’m familiar with Martinsville IN, as far away as you get spiritually from Santa Barbara. My son’s father studied at Indiana University. A more traditional and conservative American town you Won’t find. In the late 19th century, Martinsville was a center for furniture manufacturing. Also the “Goldfish Capital of the World,” that sent us goldfish when we answered the ads in the comic books. A realtor who tried to sell me a house in Martinsville eons ago called the goldfish entrepreneur a lunatic. Even today fisheries are a big business in southern Indiana. Who knew? The other major business in Martinsville, beginning in 1892, became Old Hickory Furniture, still produced today.
Old Hickory Origin
Early settlers to the Appalachian Mountains discovered the hickory sapling, which re-grew from a truncated stump, over and over again. A carpenter bent it after soaking. When cut horizontally, slats, or rushes, covered seats. In the last quarter of the 19th century, a portly gent named Billy Richardson, from the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, came to Martinsville and made hickory chairs. He sold them out of Martinsville Town Square. Mr. Richardson bragged to Martinsvillians that he made President Andrew Jackson‘s hoop chairs for his home, The Hermitage. Thus, the name “Old Hickory” came about and he appropriated an abandoned church into a furniture factory.
Mary Kay’s pieces come with quite a history. Mr. Richardson’s factory got a huge order in 1898 when he furnish the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone National Park. In 1906 he installed the furniture to match the Adirondack style of architecture, popular and now beloved at our national parks. The Martinsville historical society claims these same chairs are still used today at the Old Faithful Inn. At the time, the chairs sold for $2.50 each. In 1917, Mrs. Henry Ford bought 24 rockers for her front porch. In 1920, Crags Lodge in Estes Park bought hundreds of chairs for its dining room, still used today. Franklin Delano Roosevelt purchased furniture for his presidential retreat, Warm Springs, in 1935. Camp David was furnished in Old Hickory in 1955. In 1994, all the Rainforest Cafes in the world purchased the chairs, followed by Disney’s Wilderness Lodge in 2005.
Mary Kay’s pieces date from the 1940’s. I can date them by the “brand” sunk into the wood. Bungalow aficionados and craftsman and mission style furniture people love this line for its earthy genuineness. Mary Kay’s three pieces together are worth $800. Still affordable, as they were meant to be.